Dumping vessel



May 27 1924.

A. NEVELING DUIIPING vEssBL Filed Sept. 30, 1922 Patented May 27, 1924.

ALOYS NEVELING, OF CHICAGO, ILLINOIS.

DUMPING VESSEL.

Application filed September 30, 1922.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, ALoYs NEvELrNo, a citizen of the United States, residing at Chicago, in the county of Cook and State of Illinois, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Dumping Vessels, of which the following is a specification.

This invention relates to improvements in dumping vessels and its purpose is to provide an improved vessel of the type commonly known as a barge or scow adapted to be used for conveying earth, stone, garbage, and other materials on the water and to dump these materials into the water when the destination is reached.

The principal object of the invention is to provide an improved barge or scow compris ing a plurality of complementary buoyant vessels adapted when in certain relative positions to form a hold to receive the materials to be transported, and adapted to assume automatically certain other positions in which the contents of the hold are dumped. In barges and scows of the kind heretofore used, a large buoyant vessel has been provided with a number of wells at intervals throughout its length and pivoted dumping doors have been provided in these wells to support and dump the contents thereof, but these vessels have been unsatisfactory because the dumping doors cannot readily be maintained in condition to operate eificiently and the allowable area. of each door is practically limited so that a large number of wells and dumping doors are necessary in a barge of given length. These disadvantages are overcome in the present invention by providing a vessel in which the hold may have only one or two compartments, even when the vessel is of relatively great length and the necessity for employing dumping doors is avoided due to the dumping motions of the complementary parts of the vessel which tilt bodily in the water when unrestrained, thereby automatically releasing the contents of the hold.

These and other objects and advantages of the invention will appear more fully from the following specification taken with the accompanyin drawings in which one embodiment is i lustrated.

In the drawin s, Figure 1 shows a top plan view of a arge or scow embodying the features of the present invention; Fig. 2 is a side elevation of the same: Fig. 3 Shows a cross section through the scow with ends of the inclined walls 18.

Serial No. 591,441.

a load supported in the hold borne by the complementary parts when in their normal positions: Fig. 4 is a cross section similar to Fig. 3 showing the positions of the complementary parts during the operation of dumping the contents of the hold; Fig. 5 shows transverse vertical sectional view of the vessel when the complementary parts thereof are in their normal positions; and Fig. 6 shows transverse vertical sectional view of the vessel when the complementary parts are in their dumping positions.

As illustrated in the drawings, the scow 10 is divided longitudinally on the center line 11, thus forming two complementary buoyant parts 12. Each part 12 is a complete buoyant. vessel. adapted to be self-supporting when floated on the water and these parts may be formed of sheet steel and other materials according to any of the welllrnown processes followed in the shipbuilding art. Each part 12 has a flat bottom wall 13, a normally vertical side wall 14 and an outer top wall 15. The end walls 16 which extend upwardly from the bottom wall 13 are preferably curved as shown in Fig. 2, and the side walls 14 are preferably provided with longitudinal timbers or other members 17 which form bumpers adapted to prevent injury to the vessel when it is brought alongside a dock for example. The top walls 15 have rectangular openings therein and the inclined hopper bottoms 18 are mounted in these openings, being inclined downwardly and inwardly from the top walls 15 to the bottom walls 13. The recesses 19 Which are thus formed in the complementary parts 12 of the vessel are provided with end walls 20 which extend downwardly from the top wall 15 to the All of these walls are secured together in any suitable manner to form a watertight enclosure 21 which gives the vessel its buoyancy. The depressions 19 in the complementary parts 12, being located opposite each other, form cavities 22 of V-shaped cross sections which constitute the hold of the vessel. The angle of each hopper bottom walls to the horizontal may be varied as desired, but this angle should preferably be or less to insure the efficient operation of the vessel in dumping its contents. The formation of separate rectangular openings in the top wall of each vessel section 12, provides a bridge wall 23 extending across the vessel midwz ty oi 1gp th in the scows or bargesibfi the 307w commonly used, one such bridge wall is suflicient to provide ainple support for the inclined ho per walls 18 The complementary parts the vessel are connected to each other by hinges which are located on the vertical center line of the composite vessel and, in the embodiment illustrated, substantially in the plane of the upper walls 15. These hinges merely connect the complementary parts of the vessel together and serve to permit these parts to tilt downwardly and inwardly towards each other until they occupy the positions illustrated in Fig. 4 for example, which positions the parts 12 naturally assume due to the buoyancy of the water actin upwardly thereon and to their natural tendency to assume positions in the water with their mass centers located at the lowest possible eleva tion, and due also to the weight of the contents of the scow, which contents are designated in Fig. 3 by the numeral 26. When the vessel is loaded, the parts 12 thereof must be restrained in therelative positions illustrated in Fig. 3 thus forming a V- shaped hold adapted to receive the ma terials 26 and when the parts 12 are released from this restraint, their natural tendency to tilt toward each other, supplemented by the weight of.the materials 26 acting downwardly on the longitudinal center line of the complementary parts of the vessel, cause these arts to tilt downwardly and inwardly there y dumping the contents through the opening between themes shown in Fig. 4 After the dumping operation has been completed, the restraining means may be operated to restore the parts 12 to the normal positions illustrated in 3.

Although various operating mechanisms may be employed for restraining the parts of the vessel in their normal positions and for controlling their movements during the operation of dumping, it is now preferred to use the device illustrated articularly in Figs. and 6. In this mec anism, a lever arm 30 is secured at 31 on each end wall of the vessel and also on one of the end walls 20 adjacent the bridge wall 23 between the two hoppers which form the hold. These levers are located adjacent the upper surfaces of the vessel and extend transversely across the longitudinal center line of the vessel with their opposite ends secured to cables 32. These cables are passed around sheaves or pulleys 33, 34 and which are pivotally mounted in any suitable manner on the end walls of that section of the vessel opposite the end walls to which the levers 30 are secured. The two sheaves 33 and 34 are located adjacent the upper edges of the end walls while each sheave 35 has a comparatively low position so that rotation of the sheaves 34, by one or more crank handles, for example, will cause the ends of'thel levers 30 to travel in inclined paths between the sheaves 33 and 35, corresponding to the natural movements of these levers when the parts 1'2 of the vessel pass to and from the dumping position il lustrated in Fig. 4. By locking the sheaves 34 against rotation, the levers 30 can be held in their horizontal positions to restrain the parts 12 of the vessel in the positions illustrated in Fig. 3, and when the sheaves 34 are released, the levers 30 will be permitted to swin downwardly and permit the dumping of t 1e vessel. During this operation, the travel of the endles cables 32 should preferably be restrained by manipulation of the sheaves 34 in order to prevent a too rapid dumping movement of the complementary vessel sections 12. The facility with which the vessel sections automatically move to their dumping positions depends upon the positions of the hin es in the vertical center line of the vessel. s the elevation of these hinges is increased, the natural tendency of the vessel parts 12 to assume their dumping positions is increased, and the lowering of the hinges tends to decrease this natural dumping tendency until a point is finally reached in which the complementary parts 12 automatically retain themselves in their normal positions, as illustrated in Fig. 3, while force must be applied to them to effect the dumping movement. Between these extreme limits, a position may. be readily found in which the location of the hinges permits the automatic dumping of the 500w or barge without necessitating the expenditure of any considerable amount of power in restoring the parts of the soow to their normal positions after the dumping operation has been completed.

The invention has great advantages over other forms of barges and scows heretofore used, and adapted to be towed by tug boats or the like in transporting materials on the water, in that it increases the effective holdcapacity of the barge in a vessel of given lengthby overcoming the necessity of providing a large number of transverse bridge wells. The improved vessel of the present invention may also be more conveniently and economically loaded and may, of course, be much more easily unloaded than any of the vessels in which a large number of dumping doors must be operated.

Although one form of the invention has been described in connection with a somewhat diagrammatic representation of its construction, for purposes of illustration, it will be understood that the invention may take various other forms, without departing from the scope of the appended claim.

I claim:

A vessel comprising a pair of parallel complementary buoyant sections, said sections being provided with opposite registering recesses adapted to form the hold of the vessel, means for forming a pivotal connection between said sections in a plane containing the longitudinal center line of the vessel, said pivotal connection being adapted to permit the normal separation of said sections due to their buoyancy levers mounted on one of said sections, a longitudinal shaft mounted on the other of said 10 sections to bring said recesses into registry with each other.

ALOYS N EVELING. 

